Nature

Initially a solo project for Portland musician Honey Owens, Valet explored expansive territory not far from her work in groups like Jackie O Motherfucker. Since 2010, she and her partner have focused on making hardware-driven psychedelic house music as Miracles Club, but following the birth of their first child she's resurrected Valet as a more focused trio.

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Initially a solo project for Portland-based musician Honey Owens, Valet explored territory that was not far afield from the singer's work in spooky, experimental-minded groups like Jackie-O Motherfucker. The project released two full-lengths on venerable zone-out institution, Kranky, and also an EP on Mexican Summer before disappearing from view in the late 2000s.

Since 2010, Owens and her partner, Rafael Fauria, have focused on creating hardware-driven psychedelic house music under the name Miracles Club, releasing a number of EPs on labels like Ecstasy and Mexican Summer. However, following the birth of their first child in 2013, the pair felt compelled to temporarily step away from club sounds. Rather than release the resulting mellower guitar-driven music as Miracles Club, Owens decided to resurrect Valet, only this time as a group, featuring Fauria and multi-instrumentalist Mark Burden. The result is Nature, Valet’s first record in seven years.

A lot has changed. Previous Valet albums were song-driven, but much more abstract in their execution. The music was centered on Owens’ voice, but also readily wandered into extended space-outs—abstract doodles, warped guitar leads, and repetitive psychedelic loops. The music was gentle, but the improvisational disorder conveyed a certain amount of menace and discomfort.

Nature is more focused and more serene. Both the melodic content and production style suggest that Owens and Fauria have been revisiting '90s psych and space-rock staples like Slowdive, Spiritualized, and the Verve (AStorm in Heaven-era Verve, at least). Those bands relied heavily on studio time and technology to generate a distinctively gauzy vibe—leaning heavily on reverb, delay, and lots of guitar overdubs. On Nature, Valet turns to similar sounds, but on a stricter budget. Much like Kranky-era Deerhunter and Atlas Sound (Owens was a touring member of that band), the group uses readily available resources—foot pedals, computer-based recording software, digital plug-ins—to dial in otherworldly ambience. It sounds DIY, but in a way that strengthens the record’s character and allows some distance from its influences.

What really separates this most recent incarnation of Valet from the shoegaze records of yesteryear, though, is the songwriting. Old-school space rock bands were very concerned with transcending or escaping one’s physical self—revisit Ride’s "Leave Them All Behind", the Verve’s "Slide Away", or just about any Spiritualized song. On Nature, Owens’ lyrics tend to involve memory and personal upheaval, rather than altered states. "Twelve different ways to put up a fight/ Upside down police cars under fire bridges," she sings on the record’s title track, which alternately recalls experiences with civil unrest, 40s, and LSD. For such a trippy, reverb-drenched, and ethereal set of songs, Nature is surprisingly intimate and reflective.

Nature does deliver the psych-rock goods, though. The trio’s songs impart a feeling of ascension—with murky atmosphere giving way to nodding repetition and guitar-driven uplift. Like their peers and forebears, Valet create simple music that feels expansive. Only here, the swirl of fuzz and echo isn't an exit from terrestrial woes, just a comfortable place to take stock for a moment.